What infrastructure improvements would you really like?

jonny_trousers

All this mayoral campaigning stuff together with the cycling lobbying groups who have been emailing me recently got me thinking about what changes to cycling infrastructure in my city I would really like to see, and it's not the Dutch system.

I've mentioned before how lucky I am that I don't ride during ordinary commuting hours, but on the rare occasions that I do, I find myself despising the vast majority of my fellow cyclists. I was heading up to Regent's Park to do a few laps at 5:30 last night and the sheer number of absolute bell-ends on bikes was staggering. I now totally get why you lot get so wound up about RLJers. It made me think about paraphrasing Chris Rock: I love cyclists, but I hate people on bikes (and it's no wonder many motorists do too given what I see during rush hour). Anyway, my point is, being corralled into bicycle only lanes with this group of utter retards fills me with horror, not to mention that I actually like to be able to ride at around 20mph, which would be impossible in such lanes. And if I was then to ride among the cars instead, certain drivers would, perhaps quite understandably, think I had a bloody cheek getting in their way seeing as I now had a special place created just for me and my two-wheeled friends. Which gets me back to my point: what would you realistically like? For me...

I would like at least the first few feet of road from the curb to be properly and well maintained. I actually prefer to ride nearer the curb than in primary. I make sure I'm visible, sure, but I don't want to antagonise the already aggressive motorists hell-bent on getting past me further by holding them up, but the road surface is at its absolute worst where cyclists tend to ride. Fine utility companies who do not return road surface they have dug up to being millpond smooth. Fill in potholes within a reasonable length of time of being notified of them, and not with that temporary crap that lasts about a week (I'm looking at you, council in charge of Waterloo Bridge northbound)! That Addison Lee bloke gets upset about cyclists weaving left and right: they can't bloody help it given the state of many of the roads out there!

Similarly, I would like all metal drain covers to be coated with something grippy. That can't be hard can it?

ASLs that motorists know they will be fined for entering and are a little longer than at present, to afford cyclists a quicker getaway at the green light.

I never have to tackle those horrible junctions where people have been seriously injured or killed recently, so I don't know about the best solution, but perhaps segregated cycle lanes for those small stretches might be an idea.

Anyway, your thoughts?

iPete

Smoother roads. As you say riding to the side of the road can be a nightmare.

Car parking moved off the road. Brentford high street has done some good stuff with its on road cycle lanes.

More on-road lanes like CS8. Take away space from vehicle traffic and create dedicated on road routes.

Pedestrianise Trafalgar square, Piccadilly circus and Parliament square.

More physical protection at Junctions. This more for the nodders than me.

bails87

I was going to say "none". But I'd agree with the 'edge of the road' and drain cover comments.

I can't fault the County council round here though (the roads within the city are shocking). POtholes seem to be marked and fixed pretty quickly and earlier this week I phoned to report a 4 mile long stretch of spilt diesel/oil that I saw on my way to work, on the ride home, the road had been scrubbed with something and it was gone, can't complain about that at all.

But the biggest thing for me is attitudes and education, not infrastructure. I ride in 'out in the sticks' places where there are never going to be segregated cycle lanes. A bit of grippy material on a drain cover or a longer ASL make no difference when you've been splatted by a driver who thought he could squeeze past you at 60mph despite the lorry coming the other way.


Actually.....more police cars would help. I was amazed the other day when a driver held back and didn't overtake across the solid white despite the road being clear. It was only when she finally went past that I realised it was probably because she was being followed by a police car. Harsher penalties do naff all if you've got no chance of being caught and convicted. Make the chance of being punished for being a sh&* driver higher and you'll make drivers behave.

Also, those traffic lights like they have in (I think Sweden) where if you speed towards them they go red, then everyone else gets caught at the lights and you have to sit there being judged!

jds_1981

Being London centric & all..

A few strategically running roads turned into cycle motorways. 3 lanes each way.

msmancunia

Properly enforced ASZs

More room on trains for bikes - the ones around here only take two. I'm on the Bradford - Manchester line, and I've got no chance of getting my bike on the train on the way in - two guys from earlier up the line use them first.

Educating bus drivers - I've come across some really good driving from HGV drivers recently, but the bus drivers in Manchester are nutters.

More bike lock-ups. I've only got a Trek, but it's new, it cost £1000, and I'd be mad to lock it to a Sheffield stand in the middle of Manchester.

rick_chasey

On any urban 30 mph road which can have two lanes of traffic like embankment - turn the left hand lane into a cycle only lane. Then look at 40mph roads on a case by case basis, erring on the side of 'yes let's have one'.

But then again, I don't drive in towns .

estampida

trains trains trains trains....

once roads are no longer the only option for travelling, there will be space and time to fix the rest

walkingbootweather

Smoother pavements, and lots of little laybys that pedestrians can use to get out of our way and allow us to pass.

More seriously, where I live and cycle things are pretty good. Sure general road surfaces could be improved in places, but the most annoying thing I regularly come up against are daft cycle lanes which are worse than not having a cycle lane at all.

[rant] Evidently some of the local councils around here have made a point to create the maximum amount of cycle lane but there are some stretches that amount to 30m shared use, then down the kerb onto the road for 50m then back onto the pavement for 40m then get off and walk around a bus stop or tree, then get back on and do another 70m then cross the road to continue your journey for 100m then cross back etc. Honestly it would take 4 times as long to complete a journey using these than simply riding along the road. But if you use the road there will be some driver yelling at you to make use of the cycle lane. :evil: [/rant]

gtvlusso

Hover bikes......and hover bike tracks.....

Can't go wrong with hover bikes.

TheStone

Get rid of all tubes and trains, then replace the tracks with super smooth cycle lanes.

Kieran_Burns

Get the Forest level up to 2008, which would of course mean upgrading all the DCs likewise.
Stop using flipping vbscripts and get some more GPPs in place
Upgrade all the old kit to some modern hardware that is still in warranty
Fibre links to the tape devices, in fact a Backup LAN based on Fibre switches would be great
Someone sorting out the RDNS mess, and try and link it into the Sites and Services snap-in and get THAT up to date so we don't keep getting the System log full of unknown subnet errors
Standard firewall rulebase so we aren't constantly fighting replication errors... oooh that'd be a nice on. I hate the number 13508.

I could probably think of a few more...

Oh, yeah - consistent OU structure so we don't have to play guess the client every time we look for something.

MonkeyMonster

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Get the Forest level up to 2008, which would have course mean upgrading all the DCs likewise.
Stop using flipping vbscripts and get some more GPPs in place
Upgrade all the old kit to some modern hardware that is still in warranty
Fibre links to the tape devices, in fact a Backup LAN based on Fibre switches would be great
Someone sorting out the RDNS mess, and try and link it into the Sites and Services snap-in and get THAT up to date so we don't keep getting the System log full of unknown subnet errors
Standard firewall rulebase so we aren't constantly fighting replication errors... oooh that'd be a nice on. I hate the number 13508.

I could probably think of a few more...

Oh, yeah - consistent OU structure so we don't have to play guess the client every time we look for something.

I see what you did there

unclejimbo1983

Agree with others above that just having a decent distance between you and traffic is the biggest plus. The cycle superhighway along Millbank is a great example of this. Physical segregation with barriers always seems a bit pointless to me, as a small kerb isn't really much more effective at stopping an HGV from squishing you than a white line. Having said that, I did once see a black cab beached on the concrete dividers of the Southwark Bridge cycle lane, so they must do something!

Sequencing traffic lights along the CS routes to give cyclists a "green wave" would also be nice and would avoid some of the absolute carnage of 20 bikes all trying to stop in the ASL and pulling away a different speeds once the lights go green.

Oh, and the sections of cycle superhighway that are just blue paint need a white line down them, even if it is just dashed. When it rains I can barely see the distinction between shiny dark blue cycle lane and shiny dark grey road, so drivers have no hope at all! I don't even know why there is no line - I thought solid line meant mandatory and dashed was advisory, so I guess no line at all means "for decoration only".

Kieran_Burns

MonkeyMonster wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Get the Forest level up to 2008, which would have course mean upgrading all the DCs likewise.
Stop using flipping vbscripts and get some more GPPs in place
Upgrade all the old kit to some modern hardware that is still in warranty
Fibre links to the tape devices, in fact a Backup LAN based on Fibre switches would be great
Someone sorting out the RDNS mess, and try and link it into the Sites and Services snap-in and get THAT up to date so we don't keep getting the System log full of unknown subnet errors
Standard firewall rulebase so we aren't constantly fighting replication errors... oooh that'd be a nice on. I hate the number 13508.

I could probably think of a few more...

Oh, yeah - consistent OU structure so we don't have to play guess the client every time we look for something.

I see what you did there

I have no idea what you're talking about :P

First.Aspect

I'd like double yellow lines painted in all cycle lanes.

I'd like all "cyclist dismount" signs taken down and for some thought to be put in to whether a cycle route should really direct cyclists to somewhere so dangerous that they need to get off.

optimisticbiker

Kieran_Burns wrote:

MonkeyMonster wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Get the Forest level up to 2008, which would have course mean upgrading all the DCs likewise.
Stop using flipping vbscripts and get some more GPPs in place
Upgrade all the old kit to some modern hardware that is still in warranty
Fibre links to the tape devices, in fact a Backup LAN based on Fibre switches would be great
Someone sorting out the RDNS mess, and try and link it into the Sites and Services snap-in and get THAT up to date so we don't keep getting the System log full of unknown subnet errors
Standard firewall rulebase so we aren't constantly fighting replication errors... oooh that'd be a nice on. I hate the number 13508.

I could probably think of a few more...

Oh, yeah - consistent OU structure so we don't have to play guess the client every time we look for something.

I see what you did there

I have no idea what you're talking about :P

Sadly I do , and I'll concur (we have a similar mess) and raise you a migration of 450 servers from one 2000 forest to three 2008 forests on 18DCs while simultaneously updating all GPOs and moving the bulk of servers from Win2k/Win2k3 to Win2k8. All done whilst remaining live and completed this year just in time to start planning a Win Server 8 migration (if we survive long enough to finish the first one!) Oh and did I mention migrating from SCOM2007 to 2012 and rolling out SCCM as well? Infrastructural stress par excellance...

Painting a few sq metres of blue with some white edging doesn't even come close

Initialised

Simple really:

No point making separate cycle tracks, they fill with peds and dogs so you can't use them at more than 12mph safely.
An additional 1.5m in the left most lane of every road so there's room for a lorry to safely pass a bike and vice versa.
More and higher road tolls on entering cities and congested areas.
Traffic lights become 'Give Way' for cyclists unless there is a separate signal for bikes.
ASL cameras, 3 Points and a fine, equivalent to running a red.
In a bike vs car the car driver is 'at fault' unless it can prove other wise, helmet cam footage used to verify.
Bikes (motorised/electric or otherwise) have priority over 4 wheel+ vehicles at all times where speed limit = 40mph or less.
E-Bike cap moved to 1kW or 30mph.
Bikeability Level 3 mandatory requirement before Driving Theory unless the user is physically disabled so cannot ride a bike e.g. double amputee.

Mr Sworld

CCTV covering bike lanes and automatic fines generated when cars park in them during peak use times...

Just like Brighton Council's about to do on a section of Lewes Road.

mroli

I'd like to see London Coppers on road bikes dealing only enforcing cycling rules in London. That way policemen in cars can concentrate on car offences. It would also appear as though cyclist were policing their own which would help. I also think it would make police chases of cyclists look awesome - coppers working in a 2up to chase down errant red light jumpers who ain't stopping for no rozzers.

sketchley

For me I would like to see a simple change in road and traffic planning regarding cyling, so that the desired result is he remove the danger away from the cyclist rather than the cyclist away from the danger. All my issues with cycle infrastructure come from facilities which do nothing more than move the cyclist out of the way or send them down side roads, or alleyways on convoluted detours. The particular bug bear is cycle lanes with give ways at every side road like priory lane or off road cycling lanes with barriers to prevent motorbikes or poorly maintained surfaces.

Jay dubbleU

Cycle lanes that are for bikes not peds, dogs, parking cars.

byke68

Just to have smoother roads will do for me. Maybe to get all road markings re-painted at least once a year. Not much to ask for is it?

BelgianBeerGeek

Simple one, really. Roads to be swept. Not many cycle lanes in my part of the world, but they're places where crud (mainly broken glass) collects, so I don't really want to ride there.
My commute is along rural roads, so the same applies. When the local farmer has finished "trimming" the hedge by applying a rotating blade that reduces said hedge to a stump and in the process strewing the debris about 100 feet all around them, they should be made to sweep it up.
Bought a cyclo-x bike for the poor roads. I really don't expect then to be sorted soon. But then I don't pay road tax, so what do I know?

jds_1981

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

My commute is along rural roads, so the same applies. When the local farmer has finished "trimming" the hedge by applying a rotating blade that reduces said hedge to a stump and in the process strewing the debris about 100 feet all around them, they should be made to sweep it up.

I always thought it was the councils that did the trimming - perhaps you could write to them?

Jay dubbleU

jds_1981 wrote:

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

My commute is along rural roads, so the same applies. When the local farmer has finished "trimming" the hedge by applying a rotating blade that reduces said hedge to a stump and in the process strewing the debris about 100 feet all around them, they should be made to sweep it up.

I always thought it was the councils that did the trimming - perhaps you could write to them?

Rural hedges are normally the responsibility of the farmer - they are supposed to clear the roads of hazards afterwards - problem is what maybe a hazard to a bike probably isn't a problem for a car

Initialised

Mandatory dog training.

Dogs must be on a short leash until trained to stay dead still when they hear/see a cyclist if used on a shared path.

If they don't move they wont get squished.

Dog users to be registered and pay a nominal fee to use our C2C and other 'shared' routes and bridleways. DNA taken for poop in a bag on a tree analysis and fines and microchipping of dogs to be mandatory. Captured dogs with no chip to be destroyed.

Mr Sworld

Initialised wrote:

.Dog users to be registered and pay a nominal fee to use our C2C and other 'shared' routes and bridleways.

They should have license plates, insurance and wear helmets too...

What's a dog user BTW? It sounds a bit perverted...

gtvlusso

Initialised wrote:

Mandatory people training.

People must be on a short leash until trained to stay dead still when they hear/see a cyclist if used on a shared path.

If they don't move they wont get squished.

People users to be registered and pay a nominal fee to use our C2C and other 'shared' routes and bridleways. DNA taken for poop in a bag on a tree analysis and fines and microchipping of People to be mandatory. Captured people with no chip to be destroyed.

FTFY.......I am sure that you are aware that pedestrians have the right of way on shared paths. For me this means, slow down and stay alert, small children charging about and pets - pedestrians often come with periphery like this. As such, I have no problem with it at all - I feel privileged that I have access to the path, so that I don't have to race down a very busy dual carraigeway.

As a dog owner of a 'working' dog, I can assure you that my dog is very under control, microchipped, insured and vaccinated. There are a small percentage of dog owners that are a menace - I agree. But there are also a small percentage of cyclists that are a menace, particularly on cycle paths - they seem to think that they own the place and have the right of way.....cycle like they are on the TDF....well, you can't, it is shared. As a cyclist you are the lowest in the cyclepath foodchain, so, live with it.

sfichele

bails87 wrote:

I was going to say "none". But I'd agree with the 'edge of the road' and drain cover comments.

But the biggest thing for me is attitudes and education, not infrastructure .... when you've been splatted by a driver who thought he could squeeze past you at 60mph despite the lorry coming the other way.

Actually.....more police cars would help ... Make the chance of being punished for being a sh&* driver higher and you'll make drivers behave.

I have to agree with what Bails said. It's education that's the problem. Segregation and infrastructure are a good thing for congested city cycling at complex junctions and on busy city roads, but on quiet country roads it's good driving that I require, and roads that are wide enough.

Oh and burn and destroy every god damn cyclist dismount sign

roger_merriman

Well indeed very few if any roads are problematic to ride on, it's the way the rest of traffic behave, that makes it a issue.

This said I love rolling though Bushy Park, get friendly smiles etc.

I'd like to see Kingston look at their cycle paths and try to make them work. Though I do like one down Hampton Court road, shared path, but very rare to meet foot traffic, and saves filtering past cars that don't look before doing a U turn!

rick_chasey

Two lane cycle lanes in both directions on all road.

One for pootlers - one for people in lycra / going over 20mph.